Two female suicide bombers have attacked Baghdad's main Shia shrine, killing at least 60 people and injuring 125 others, officials in Iraq say.

The attack happened at the Imam Moussa al-Kadhim shrine in the Kadhimiya area as people gathered for Friday prayers.

It comes a day after 84 people were killed in two separate suicide attacks in Baghdad and Baquba.

Many victims in Baquba and in Baghdad on Friday were Iranian pilgrims and the violence was condemned in Tehran.

Violence fell sharply in the last year and the latest bombing does not change this trend, but it is a worrying development, says the BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad.

'Explosion and fire'

Early reports suggested the attackers had detonated explosives belts near two gates of the revered shrine, which was crowded with worshippers.

However, a senior Iraqi bomb disposal officer later told Reuters news agency that the suicide attackers had used two leather bags packed with explosives, which they set down among the crowds at two of the gates to the shrine.

"They used sidestreets to get there and this enabled them to avoid checkpoints," said Major-General Jihad al-Jabiri.

The howling of the wounded echoed through a nearby hospital where the victims were admitted, the hallways packed with security forces and anxious family members looking for loved ones, an AFP correspondent reports.

Sabiha Kadhim, 50, had come up from the southern Iraqi town of Diwaniya with her family, four of whom were killed in the blast.

Lying on a stretcher, her head and hand bandaged, she said: "I was near the shrine and suddenly there was a huge explosion and a fire broke out.

"I saw human body parts everywhere."

Qassim Zada, a 62-year-old Iranian pilgrim from Tehran, had come to the shrine with his wife. He now lay in hospital, his clothes soaked in blood.

"I was only a few metres [yards] away from the explosion and I don't know what happened," he said.

The shrine, in a predominantly Shia neighbourhood of the capital, has been a target for insurgents in the past.

'Hateful' attack

Around 25 of those killed on Friday were Iranian pilgrims, Iraqi police said.